


What I Could Be

by VoiceOfNurse



Series: Que Sera [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Bodily Functions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Fanfiction, Major Character Injury, Medical Professionals, NPC Nurse, Non-Sexual Age Play, Nurses, Vomiting, alexander pierce should have died slower, rated for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-01 21:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5221409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VoiceOfNurse/pseuds/VoiceOfNurse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part of him had been expecting to be triggered into a meltdown the second he caught sight of the equipment, but as they passed from the corridor and onto the dimly lit ward he felt- nothing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Middle aged, Asian, probably well acquainted with death

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lauralot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauralot/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Little Interludes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3705493) by [Lauralot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauralot/pseuds/Lauralot). 



> Once again, for the glorious Lauralot, whose works I keep coming back to. Also for BethofAUs, who can always be counted on to say nice things.

Steve had thought long and hard before bringing him to the hospital, but in the end there really hadn’t been another option that Bucky was willing to accept. They had been out (because of course they had; when did anything ever happen to them during downtime) when Steve had taken a call from someone far too important for Bucky to be told about. They’d even been having a nice time; Steve had taken them to one of the more out of the way parks where there was enough green to dispel Bucky’s rising sense of cabin fever, but not so much that it attracted half of New York.

They’d been eating hotdogs, or, more accurately, Steve had been eating hotdogs and Bucky had been picking at a slightly squashed bun because processed meat still made him vomit. Steve had actually started to laugh, retelling some ridiculous story about how he’d lapped Sam so many times that he’d found the man half passed out under a tree. Because Steve could make friends with someone by doing that, where every other guy on the planet would have earned himself a smack in the mouth for being an arrogant jackass; Bucky would have blamed it on the serum, but he could remember just enough of Steve from Before to know that the little bastard had been born with it. Not that he didn’t get himself a smack in the mouth from time to time…

But then his cellphone had started to trill, and the moment had been broken. Steve had looked away, professional in an instant, before he’d gone terrifyingly white. The car had turned up to collect them a moment later, and before Bucky even knew what was going on he had been hustled into the back seat.

The next thing he knew, he was sitting in a stubbornly comfortable chair in the most artificially calming room he had ever seen, trying very hard not to vibrate out of his skin while Steve spoke quietly to the woman at the desk. There was a fish tank in the corner, an actual, honest to god fish tank with honest to god fish in it, and Bucky couldn’t stop staring at them. He wondered, for a slightly hysterical moment, who fed those fish. Who cleaned their tank out and went scooping with a net when one of them died. He couldn’t imagine one of the nurses doing it, surely they had better things to do, but the idea of there being a janitor assigned especially to the ICU fish tank seemed ridiculous.

“-ey? Hey, hey, Buck, you with me?”

Steve was in his face all of a sudden. Bucky blinked; his eyes hurt, and he wondered how long he’d been staring at the swarm of little neon fish with all the focus of a sniper. _And you’d know all about that_ , Bucky Bear commented from his bag, just a little annoyed that he’d been ignored up until this point. Bucky shushed him; he was in the hospital, with Steve, and he needed to keep his head clear and focus. Steve didn’t need to worry about a little kid as well.

“Okay, that’s it, we’re leaving.” Steve had him by the shoulders, and for the second time in several minutes Bucky found himself blinking back to reality to find Steve’s nose less than an inch from his own. This time, though, Steve looked about two seconds away from either freaking out or donning his very best Captain America persona and kicking some ass.

“What, _no_ , we only just got here. We haven’t even seen Clint yet. What the hell, Steve?” There was no way he was going anywhere until he’d seen Clint, not when he’d fought tooth and nail to go with Steve rather than have the faceless Stark Industries driver take him back to the tower like an infant. Not when he’d had to cycle through three different breathing exercises and take a moment to hide in the bathroom and not throw up just to get this far. He was still himself (as much as he could be, anyway); he was fucking well _achieving_ something, and Steve wasn’t going to take that away from him just because he’d zoned out for a few minutes thinking about fish.

Unfortunately, Steve didn’t look all that convinced. As a matter of fact, he looked the exact opposite of convinced, which would have sent the littler part of himself scurrying to please that expression away. But he wasn’t little, not right now, and despite not being able to remember very much of it, he’d been wrangling an orney Steve Rogers for years. He wasn’t about to lose to him now, no sir.

“Steve, I’m _fine_. Look, see, no freaking out, no nothing. I was looking at the fish, can’t I look at the fucking fish now without you wanting to call my therapist and have me talk it out?”  He was being too harsh and he knew it, but he was holding it together by a thread and Steve wasn’t helping. Bucky would apologise to him later, once they’d checked that Clint wasn’t going to do something unthinkable like _die_ and Bucky had had the breakdown he could feel brewing. After that, he’d tell Steve he was sorry for pretty much shouting in his face and making the nice lady behind the reception desk look at them like they were crazy.

Maybe they both were crazy, Bucky certainly was, but that wasn’t about to stop him from seeing his friend. Steve, thank God, seemed to realise this, because he backed down after less than twenty seconds of anxious staring and subsided with a faintly concerned looking pout. “Fine, fine, I trust you, okay? But you have to tell me if anything starts to slide. This isn’t exactly an ideal environment- God, your doctors are going to kill me.”

The savage clutch of fury that rose in his gut at the idea of anyone trying to kill Steve was probably one of the things that were unsuitable for a hospital waiting area, so Bucky didn’t say anything about it. Instead, he offered Steve his very best ‘I’m fine’ grin. He was saved from Steve’s searching look a moment later when a young man stuck his head around the door and called out to the room at large: “Family for Mr Barton?”  which had Steve’s laser focus switching elsewhere.

Bucky wasn’t overly sure of his welcome, but he set himself just behind Steve as though he belonged there (he did, goddammit, he _did_ ) and followed them into the ICU.

Part of him had been expecting to be triggered into a meltdown the second he caught sight of the equipment, but as they passed from the corridor and onto the dimly lit ward he felt- nothing. It was noisy, but in a quiet way; there was machinery and electrical sounds that he wasn’t familiar with, a strangely rhythmic sucking whoosh the source of which he couldn’t even imagine and the occasional muted alarm. There were a few people in white coats milling about a large central desk, a few beds with disposable blue curtains drawn round, here and there a nurse sitting beside a bed on a stool, but the conversation was all quiet and nobody was screaming.

“Are you okay?” Steve sounded more worried about Bucky than he was about Clint, whose curtain shrouded cubical they were being lead towards, and Bucky had the strangest urge to clip him around the back of the head and roll his eyes. Unsure of where the desire had suddenly come from, he pushed it down and shrugged.

“Fine. Let’s just do this.”  Tony was already calling in doctors from all around the world and arranging to have Clint transferred to the tower at the earliest possible opportunity. They didn’t even really need to be there, but they’d been close and Steve had been worried, and Bucky was sick of constantly holding him back. Like he was some sort of retarded fucking shackle around Steve’s soul, constantly dragging him away from his life, his friends…

Steve didn’t look awfully convinced, but suddenly they were right in front of Clint’s bed and their conversation (a pisspoor excuse for one at that) was silenced by the sight of him. He looked- not at all like Bucky had been expecting. Carefully positioned on his side, Clint didn’t look like he was sleeping, but he didn’t look like he was dead either. It was wrong somehow, because Bucky knew Clint liked to sleep in a sprawl, limbs spread all over the couch when he napped during a movie.

The machine positioned just off to the side of Clint’s head was a mess of wires and elephant tubing, blue and white and feeding into the tube that was protruding from his mouth. Bucky had pictured that one as being bigger, massive, choking, but in reality it was probably only a little wider than his thumb. He rubbed anxiously at his neck, swallowed, nervous all of a sudden and not entirely sure why. The sturdy green line that extended from Clint’s nose was certainly familiar; Bucky averted his eyes, not wanting to see it.

There was a little girl, he realised, sat on a stool just across the room. Bucky couldn’t make out who was in the bed over there, couldn’t see anything other than a tuft of dark hair, but whoever they were she was watching them with absolute focus. There was a woman there too, probably the mother, but she was hovering at the head of the bed, eyes on that sprig of hair as though it held all of the secrets of the universe. She wasn’t looking at her daughter at all.

The nurse though, he was watching. Bucky’s eyes followed him (middle aged, Asian, probably well acquainted with death) as he stooped down beside the child and engaged her in whispered conversation.

“Do you want to help look after your Daddy?” A cold little part of Bucky wondered if she already knew her Daddy was going to die, while another, larger (littler) part of him wanted to weep for her.

Oblivious to one of the most dangerous men in existence eavesdropping, the little girl shuffled her feet on the lip of the stool, then nodded her head. The nurse gave her a blinding smile that didn’t look fake, but had to be. Nobody could possibly smile like that in a room full of death. “Well, come on then! I’ll show you how.”

The nurse wasn’t a very big man, but she looked tiny in his arms when he scooped her from the stool and carried her over to the head of the bed. By this point, her mother had noticed and was observing the proceedings with a sort of hopeless watchfulness. She didn’t smile.

“This is the one that’s helping him breath, and that one there is how he has his dinner,” the nurse was saying, when Bucky tuned back in. “All these ones here, they’re how we give him medicine, and this big machine here tells us all about what his body is doing. That red line there is for his blood pressure, see the numbers? And the green one is his heartbeat.”

It was so easy to end a life, but sustaining it- that was difficult. Keeping hope alive was even harder. “And this one here, this will take his temperature. Do you want to do that for me?” Bucky watched as the nurse wrapped tiny brown fingers around the thermometer, and guided it to the man in the bed’s ear. Listened to him praising the child for doing exactly nothing, except maybe adding an extra complication to his already busy day. Watched as the little girl, so proud, wriggled down to tell her mother all about how she was helping, how one day she’d be a doctor and make people better.

Bucky wondered what he could have been, if his Daddy had taught him something other than how to kill.


	2. Psychic, and therefore even more dangerous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His Daddy would be so upset if he hurt a nurse, even if she was an evil clone-robot nurse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this one might have gotten away from me a bit...

He wasn’t sure what had happened. Steve had been talking to a doctor about Clint, deep in a conversation that Bucky didn’t really want to listen to. Bucky had been watching the little girl across the way ‘help’, and he’d been fine. He’d been completely fine, if a little cold inside, and then all of a sudden he’d been sitting back in the waiting room with his head between his knees and an unfamiliar hand rubbing his back. There was quite literally nothing in between, and that terrified him even more than the instinctive roil of _not my Daddy!_ that surged through him along with returning awareness.

His head snapped up and he met a pair of sympathetic brown eyes for an instant before he stumbled out of his chair and nearly dumped himself onto the floor. The stranger ( _nurse_ , his brain supplied as an afterthought) looked shocked, but her sudden, surprisingly strong grip on the back of his hoodie stopped him falling. She yanked him back into his seat in a way that could only have been practiced, saying something that Bucky couldn’t make out about giving himself a minute, panic attack, all going to be okay.

If he had been able to breathe, he would have laughed at her, screamed at her, because _nothing was going to be okay_! His daddy had vanished, Clint looked like he was dying, he wasn’t even breathing by himself, and Bucky felt like he was having a heart attack. Logically, Bucky knew that she was right; he was having a panic attack, but he was five and he was scared and logic had been one of the first things to go out of the window. He needed his Daddy, desperately enough that he felt like he’d die without him and he was vaguely aware of sobbing something along those lines at the nurse.

She looked shocked for a moment, and Bucky flinched away, afraid that she’d laugh at him, but then something odd happened to her face and suddenly it was fine. She smiled at him, calm and sure, and put her arm around him. It didn’t really help, but the motion of her hand kept him in his seat, at least.

“It’s okay, you’re all right. You’ve had a bit of a shock, it’s normal. Just try to calm down a bit.”  She sounded so reasonable, so certain, like Bucky wasn’t about to shake himself to death while she stroked his back and told him it was all going to be fine. Part of him wanted to listen to her, because maybe she could save him, but another, larger part wanted to run away and hide. She was a stranger, dangerous, she’d hurt him, she- she had a lanyard with bears on it.

Bucky blinked. His vision was sparking in and out, but those were definitely bears. He didn’t really think that people who did evil experiments would wear bears on their lanyards. Obviously, you could never be certain, but he found himself drawn into listening to her all the same. She was a stranger, possibly a dangerous stranger, but she liked bears enough to have them on her lanyard so she couldn’t be all bad.

“That’s right, just give yourself a moment. Slow breaths, and when you’re ready we’ll go have a sit down out of the way a bit, okay? Give you a bit of privacy.” Apparently sensing Bucky’s rising dismay, because _what if people had seen!_ she tapped him on the shoulder and urged him to refocus. “No, hey, it’s okay. We asked everyone to leave for a minute, give you some time to get yourself under control. It’s just you and me right now.”

“I’m- can’t breathe- _Daddy_ -” There were so many things that Bucky needed to say, but none of them would come out right. His chest was hurting and his hand had gone numb and the world was ending. He fumbled with his bag, needing Bucky Bear but thwarted by the zipper, but the nurse (her nametag said MAGGIE) seemed to understand. She peeled the bag open easily, and then Bucky Bear was being pressed against his chest. Bucky folded himself over, squashing the poor bear nearly flat, shivering and trying to hold himself together.

“It’s okay, you’re okay, just give yourself a minute. Get your breath back and we’ll see if we can’t find your Dad. Don’t try to talk for a minute, just breathe, and then we’ll have a glass of water and try to sort this all out.”  She sounded so reasonable, Bucky didn’t understand how anyone could sound so reasonable and Bucky Bear thought she must be some sort of evil robot, or maybe a clone. He thought about that for a moment; she certainly didn’t feel like a robot. Her hand was warm and fragile, now running up and down his (bad-naughty-metal-wrong) shoulder. Somehow, Bucky’s head had ended up squashed against the side of her neck. He didn’t remember putting it there, but he could hear her heart beating, smell her. He didn’t think a robot or a super clone would smell like soap and the beginnings of sweat.

Bucky Bear was doubtful; wanted Bucky to get his head away from her as quickly as possible, or possibly use it to headbutt her. But that would be naughty. He wasn’t allowed to attack people, even if he was scared of them. His Daddy would be so upset if he hurt a nurse, even if she was an evil clone-robot nurse. Which was actually really unlikely, because The Asset had been the very best, everyone had said so, and his state of the art arm was nothing like real skin. It was cold and hard and needed to be hidden in a glove. It didn’t have a pulse, didn’t feel like it was alive.

“Don’t- don’t touch it. You’ll get hurt.” Her hand was still on his arm, stroking it as if it wasn’t bad. Like it couldn’t squash her into pieces and make her bleed red-red-red all over the nice waiting room. Bucky shuddered; he felt sick.

Maggie seemed to understand that (Bucky Bear thought she might be psychic, and therefore even more dangerous), because she whipped a little grey hat shaped bowl out of nowhere and set it on his lap. Bucky blinked at it, momentarily confused, before his body decided it had had enough. He retched, swallowing frantically as he scrabbled for the bowl which materialised underneath his chin as if by magic. There wasn’t much to come up, just bile and air, but by the time he was done Bucky was sobbing, mortified.

The bowl vanished again, tucked out of the way so he wouldn’t have to stare at it. Bucky Bear, who had been moved to sit beside him, rescued from the threat of vomit, was placed back in his lap, and a towel was nudged into his hand. “There we go, nothing to worry about. All taken care of. You just need to have a sit down for a minute,”  Maggie was still talking, calm and collected like it was fine and not something totally awful. Bucky blinked stupidly at her.

“But I’m already sitting down…”

Maggie actually laughed, and started carefully mopping up his face with a wet wipe as if it was the most normal thing in the world, to be sponging vomit off of a total stranger. Maybe it was, Bucky wasn’t actually sure what nurses did, outside of the obvious, nebulous ‘caring for people’ thing. “Well, you know, maybe sit down some more? Then we can have a chat and see if we can get your Dad over here. Maybe I can phone him for you?”

Bucky shook his head, even though he desperately wanted to beg her to get Daddy this instant. Daddy had been talking to the doctor. It was rude to interrupt, and Clint might be dying. What if he called Daddy away for something stupid, and it meant that Clint died? Clint would die, all because Bucky couldn’t be a big boy for ten stupid minutes. “He- he’s talking to the doctor. Busy.”

“I’m sure he’d want to know that you weren’t feeling well-”

“No!” It was rude to shout, and he knew better than to talk over people, but he wouldn’t be responsible for killing his friend. The Asset killed everything it touched, and Bucky knew, deep down, that he was a bad boy, but he wouldn’t deliberately hurt Clint. Clint was a good person, he didn’t deserve to have Bucky destroy him just because he needed his Daddy to take him home and put him to bed. They were in the hospital. Bucky needed to grow up.

Maggie didn’t even look shocked. Bucky wondered how often people shouted in her face, that she just blinked and got on with it. “Okay, we can wait til he’s done with the doctor, if that’s what you want. But is there anything else we can do, for right now, that would help? What would make you feel better?”

He’d feel better if he was home, and Clint was fine, and they could all sit down and play with his bears. He’d even let Hawkbear be the good guy. He and Bear Widow could save the day, and everyone would tell him what a good bear he was. Bucky Bear might even give him a medal, so everyone could see just how hard Hawkbear worked and how much everyone loved him and how sad they’d all be if he wasn’t there.

“I-” He couldn’t go home, because Daddy needed to talk to the doctors, and he needed to talk to Tony because they needed Clint home even if he was sick. Bucky scrubbed his real hand over his face, clearing away cold sweat and leftover wet wipe residue. He felt wrung out, and tired, and awful, and to make matters worse there was an ominous sort of ache low down in his tummy.

“I- um… bathroom?”  He felt like all the blood in him had surged up and turned his face red, but his feet were numb and he didn’t know if he’d be able to stand up on his own. He wanted to just sit until he felt less like he was going to pass out, but he knew from experience that this wouldn’t just go away, he couldn’t wait, and the alternative would kill him. He couldn’t- it was unthinkable, not in public where people might _see_.

Maggie just nodded, and it was a bit frightening, what she seemed to class as normal. She stood up, and set her hands high up on his ribs to brace him. “Okay. That’s something we can do. It’s not far. Push up from the chair for me, okay, nice and slow. I’ve got you, you’re safe, but don’t grab at me, okay? I don’t want us both falling over.”

 _She’s rubbish._ Bucky Bear wasn’t impressed, because Daddy could have picked them up without even thinking twice about it. Maggie, though, she was a lot smaller than Bucky, and he didn’t want to squash her. He did as he was told, levering himself upwards. He wobbled, and his tummy cramped uncomfortably at the change in position, but Maggie had a fierce grip on his ribcage and he was able to balance himself after a moment of wavering.

Of all the ridiculous things, she seemed proud of him, like standing up was actually an achievement. Bucky wanted to be ashamed, pull away and insist he could do it on his own, he didn’t need her stupid help, but his legs were asleep and he didn’t want to fall on the floor. He needed to get to the bathroom, then he wouldn’t have to worry, and maybe he could hide until things felt better.

The must have looked really stupid, hobbling down the hall together. Bucky screwed his eyes closed and let her lead him; he didn’t know where the bathroom even was, and if anyone was around to see them he didn’t want to know about it. Maggie walked with a bit of a limp, and there was something off about her left sneaker, but she was surprisingly stable. Small like Tasha, but not as good, obviously. Maybe they could call Tasha, have Tony bring her? But then she’d be upset because Clint was her best friend, and she didn’t need to be worrying about Bucky either.

When they reached the bathroom, Bucky thought it was going to be the worst thing ever, but it was a disabled one and there were bars all over the place that he could hold onto. Maggie made sure he had a hold of one, checked that he could manage (of course he could, he wasn’t a baby), then gave him a little red string and told him to pull it when he was ready to come back out. She went outside, then, and closed the door, and Bucky had never been more grateful for anything in his life.

At first, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to go. He needed to, desperately, but the door didn’t have a real lock on it, and anyone could just walk in. He wasn’t supposed to lock the door anyway, Daddy didn’t like it, someone could get hurt that way, but at the Tower they had an agreement and people didn’t just come in when he was in the bathroom. He knew Maggie was out there, probably not very far away incase he fell over and needed helping up off the floor or something. She’d stop anyone coming in, at least he hoped she would, but he also had this nasty, creeping feeling that she might be listening out there.

Eventually, his body just made up its mind for him. No matter how anxious or embarrassed Bucky was, he wasn’t actually able to hold it, and sitting on the toilet hurting because he was too mortified to go was even more awful than having an accident in public. But only because one would lead to the other, and if that happened he’d have to leave the country. Or hide under his bed for the rest of his life with his hands over his ears and his eyes shut.

He stayed huddled on the toilet, arms wrapped around Bucky Bear, crushing him against his stomach, for ages. Maggie knocked a couple of times, asking him if he was okay and telling him to take as long as he needed, she was right there waiting for him, there was no hurry, but she didn’t come in. She didn’t even try the handle to see if it was locked; it wasn’t, Bucky hadn’t felt able to get back over there after she’d deposited him in front of the toilet, and it was one of those stupid ones that could be opened with a nickle anyway. He mumbled a brief ‘I’m fine’ whenever she asked, but he wasn’t ready to come out.

It felt like an hour or so later, though in reality it had probably been about twenty minutes, when there was a completely different knock on the door. Bucky’s head snapped up from his miserable contemplation of Bucky Bear, because he knew that knock. “Hey, Buck, you okay in there?”

Daddy. Daddy was outside the door. “What about Clint? You were talking to the doctor?” It was horrible, talking to Daddy through the bathroom door, but as much as he wanted to see Daddy right now he didn’t want Daddy to see him. It was disgusting, and Daddy might just up and stop loving him if he saw Bucky hunched up on the toilet.

“Clint’s okay. The doctor said he was actually doing really well, all things considered. He’s unwell right now, he’s very unwell, but they’re confident that he’s going to make a good recovery. Tony’s going to help out; as soon as Clint’s strong enough to be moved, he’s going to have the best people in the world looking after him.”

“He’s not going to die?” Bucky’s hand was shaking, and his legs still felt like they belonged to someone else, but he got himself cleaned up and stood, because he needed to see Daddy. He needed to know that it was true.

“I can’t promise you that.” Daddy had his Captain America voice out, the one that made everyone instantly believe him, because clearly he knew best. “But everything is looking really positive right now. The doctor said he’s already doing better than he was a few hours ago. They’re going to try waking him up a bit tomorrow evening, and once he’s breathing on his own we can get him transferred.”

Bucky swallowed around a shaky exhale, torn between feeling relieved and terrified. “I’m supposed to pull the string. To say that I’m ready to come out,” he muttered. Maggie had told him not to get up on his own, and he was probably going to be in trouble, but Daddy was there and would protect him if she turned out to be an evil clone robot and tried to punish him.

“Can I come in?”  And that was what made Daddy so special, because he asked. He always asked, even though Bucky was probably scaring him. He’d probably turned around and suddenly noticed that Bucky wasn’t there. He must have worried. Bucky had just- left. He’d wandered off without saying something. That was so naughty… he wasn’t allowed to go off on his own.

“Yes.” He was going to be in trouble, but he couldn’t stay in the bathroom forever. He was too exhausted, and as clean as it looked, he didn’t really want to sit on the floor of a public toilet. He couldn’t even catch germs, but it was still really horrible. At the very least his clothes would be ruined and these jeans were his favorite. He didn’t want to spoil them.

By the time he’d finished worrying about sitting on the floor, Daddy was in the room with him and had wrapped him in the biggest, warmest hug Bucky had ever felt, so it didn’t really matter anymore. Even if Bucky’s legs stopped working all together, Daddy wouldn’t let him fall over. Daddy would never dump him on a nasty bathroom floor. He might have cried a bit, after that, because he was overwrought and tired and it was all too much. Daddy didn’t say anything, though, just rocked him gently and kept him close; like he was something precious, not a naughty, disgusting little boy.

“We’re going home,” Daddy whispered, once the tears had dried up.  “There’s a car waiting downstairs for us, and I want you to try and sleep a bit on the way back, okay? You’re really pale, Bucky; I think this was too much for you.”

It had been, it had been a complete disaster, but Bucky had wanted to come. He’d wanted to be there for Clint, and if Clint was going to still be in hospital tomorrow, then he was coming back. Clint didn’t have anyone to guard him; he needed Bucky Bear there to keep an eye on things while he was unconscious and couldn’t watch his own back. Bucky would bring Captain Ameribear with him tomorrow, and maybe Bear Widow; they would look out for Clint and report back to Bucky Bear if anything suspicious was going on. Like robot nurse clones. Just in case.

But Daddy was worried. Daddy never listened to reason when he was worried, so Bucky just nodded. He was tired, but once he’d slept a bit and was feeling better, they were coming back with reinforcements.


	3. Instantly untrustworthy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, this fic is growing larger than I intended it to be.

By the time he came down for breakfast the next morning, Bucky had constructed an elaborate plan to convince Steve to take him back to the hospital. He’d packed his bag with as many Bearvengers as could realistically fit inside, dressed meticulously, and made absolutely certain that his hair was tidy. He looked- normal. Which was the whole point, because Steve needed to see that Bucky was completely fine, and didn’t need mothering. If he was completely in control, then there was no reason for Steve to make him stay behind, and if Steve did try to exclude him, then there’d be hell to pay.

Of course, like most of his best made plans, it all went to shit when he got downstairs. Steve was already up, which wasn’t unusual, but he also looked like utter crap, which very much was. “You look like shit.” He’d meant it to come out as a statement, maybe even a little sarcastic, but he ended up sounding confused. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen Steve strung out to the point where he got pale and jumpy, it certainly wasn’t the first time he’d seen the wet, red-rimmed eyes, but this time, in this situation, it scared him more than ever.

Because what if something had happened? What if Clint had died and nobody had been there because Steve had been too busy taking Bucky home and putting him to bed like a baby? “Is Clint-?”

“Clint’s fine. I’m fine. There’s nothing to worry about, Bucky.” That was a blatant lie. Bucky was five sometimes, but he wasn’t _stupid_ , and he wasn’t about to be bullshitted out of the truth. Whatever it was that put that look on Steve’s face needed to vanish.

With a sinking feeling, Bucky wondered if maybe it was him. Steve had been under a lot of stress, he knew that. His memories were patchy at best, and certainly unreliable, but he was sure Steve had cried more since Bucky had turned back up in his life than he had in all the years before that. Maybe he’d finally realised what a fuckup Bucky was, and was getting ready to ship him off somewhere. Maybe Steve wanted his life back. 

“There’s obviously something,” he muttered, wondering if it would be easier if Steve just came out and said it.

Steve just shook his head, though, and folded both of his hands around Bucky’s good one. He looked so fucking earnest that Bucky couldn’t even call him out as a liar. “Hey, no, it’s nothing like that. It’s not about you, okay? I’m just- I’m tired, Buck. It’s been a long week, and yesterday was a long day. Today’s going to be even longer, but I’m fine.”

Bucky frowned, because that was Steve’s Captain voice. Either he was lying (probably), or he really was so completely physically and emotionally exhausted that he couldn’t even talk about it (also probably). “I- do you want me to stay here today? I don’t have to come to see Clint, not if it makes your life harder than it already is.”

He wanted to go, he’d promised himself that nothing would stop him from making sure that Clint was still okay, but Steve looked like one more thing would end him. Bucky couldn’t do that to him. “I’ll get JARVIS to put on a film or something, I’ve got things I can do. You don’t need to babysit.”

He’d been trying to help, but rather than making things easier, his offer made Steve’s face crumple. For a terrifying moment Bucky thought Steve was going to break down sobbing, but Steve had always been the stronger one. Always. So rather than folding up and crying, Steve just sucked it all back in, wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, and offered Bucky a smile. Like Bucky was the one that needed comforting.

“Of course you can come with me,” Steve said it like it was something monumental, like Bucky deciding he wanted to go see Clint again after yesterday’s disaster was some great breakthrough, and Bucky didn’t have the heart to tell him that it was nothing of the sort. He was still an anxious mess about the whole thing. He’d narrowly avoided throwing up the dinner that Steve had insisted on, and he’d woken up wet and mortified in the night, shivering in the aftermath of dreams he couldn’t remember, and crept down to the laundry to deal with the fallout. He wasn’t okay, but Clint was more important than all of that. He wasn’t going to be looked after like a child while Clint was on life support, not if he could help it.

“I can come?” He’d already been thinking of contingency plans, of getting one of the others, maybe Tony, to take the bears to Clint. It would probably be easier on everyone if he did stay behind, but now Steve was looking at him with a heartbreaking smile on his face, and Bucky cringed at the thought of disappointing him.

Which is how he ended up back at the hospital, sat on an uncomfortable chair watching Clint- do nothing. He was laying in a different position from yesterday, right over on the other side with his face half mashed into the pillow. There was a blue and white cloth tucked under his cheek to catch a trail of saliva, which wasn’t actually that unusual; Clint normally drooled in his sleep. Clint’s mouth was half open around the tube, and Bucky could see his tongue flopped over to the side. It looked a bit like an inert pink slug, loose and unnatural, and he had to force himself to look away.

He found himself looking at Steve instead, awkward and a bit too big in his own uncomfortable chair. Steve still looked stressed, fidgeting his hands like he wanted his shield, wanted someone to hit. Bucky kind of agreed with him; he wanted to punish someone just as much as Steve did. Unfortunately, because this was real life and not the parody of it that HYDRA marketed, finding whoever was responsible and killing them wouldn’t do anything to help Clint. It would just mean leaving him on his own to potentially die while nobody was looking out for him.

His bag was still on the floor, tucked between his ankles. Bucky had been planning on getting the Bearvengers out as soon as he arrived, but he’d been suddenly and acutely embarrassed about the whole thing when he realised that someone might be watching. He was already a national laughingstock, everybody knew the intimate gory details of his life, but for some reason he couldn’t get over the thought that someone was going to say something about his bears.

Bucky Bear thought it was ridiculous; he was offended by the mere assumption that someone would be embarrassed about him. He had coldly informed Bucky that he was an elite agent. He’d even muttered something about Bucky being a coward. Bucky wanted to tell him that he wasn’t a coward; he was in the hospital, which was absolutely teeming with doctors and nurses and sinister equipment, but he was also a grown man who was too embarrassed to get something out of his bag because someone might look at him funny.

The nurse taking care of Clint today wasn’t even looking at them. She was drawing up something from a glass bottle with a syringe, the astringent smell of latex rising from her gloves. She had spoken to Steve very briefly when they’d first arrived, but there hadn’t really been much to say, and she was obviously busy. Bucky would far rather she take care of Clint and ignore them anyway. It made observing her behaviour so much easier, after all; he’d been meticulously checking everything she picked up to inject into Clint, wary of poison. She hadn’t done anything untoward yet, but her lanyard had a little white rabbit on the clip, which made her instantly untrustworthy. 

Bucky bit his lip, and before he could talk himself back out of it he opened up his bag. Bucky Bear’s accusing eyes stared out at him from the top of the pile; he hadn’t been pleased about the tight fit. Captain Ameribear’s shield was jabbing him in the stuffing, and Iron Bear’s armour wasn’t very comfortable to sit on _at all_. With a muttered apology, Bucky pulled them all out, freeing Hulk Bear from the very bottom as well. All four bears looked a little bit squashed, and the surgical mask Tony had jokingly provided for Hulk Bear when he heard Clint was in the hospital had fallen off. Bucky flattened it out and put it back on, smiling at the memory. He didn’t have a Burce Bear, but Tony had dubbed Hulk Bear ‘Doctor Bearnner’. Bruce didn’t find it all that funny, but Bucky thought it was excellent.

With another wary glance at the nurse, Bucky sat Hulk Bear on the head of Clint’s bed. He’d be able to see everything that was going on from there, and threaten to smash anyone who put a foot wrong. Captain Ameribear went right by Clint’s head, because he gave orders that had to be listened to, and maybe he could tell Clint to be okay. Finally, Iron Bear was propped up on top of the monitor that recorded Clint’s vitals; he was more comfortable around electronics, after all, and Bucky didn’t want his armour poking Clint by mistake. Bucky Bear certainly didn’t like it when that happened, and he couldn’t imagine Clint would enjoy it happening while he was asleep.

Satisfied that Clint was adequately protected now, Bucky returned Bucky Bear to his bag, zipping it most of the way closed. A single, shiny eye was just about visible through the gap, and the bear made it very clear that he was watching everything very carefully. If there was any funny business, any at all, then there would be consequences. 

Bucky went back to doing nothing after that. Clint was totally still except the rise and fall of his chest, which was even and set to a predictable rhythm. The machine behind his head hissed and whooshed in time with each breath, little yellow humps tracking across the screen. Bucky wasn’t sure what it meant, but it wasn’t making the awful noise that the machine across the way was making, which he counted as encouraging. The nurse over there looked harried, and was constantly getting out of his seat to meddle with equipment.

When Bucky looked back around, Steve had his head in his hands and was pinching the bridge of his nose like he was fighting a migraine. Bucky wasn’t sure if Steve even got headaches, which made his defeated posture downright terrifying. Before he could saying anything, though, the nurse was tapping Steve on the shoulder. Bucky bristled, because couldn’t she see that Steve didn’t want to be touched right now? But Steve, always polite, just looked up and smiled at her. ...like she wasn’t looking more and more like a double agent by the second.

“Hey,” she had a nice voice, but Bucky was on to her. “Why don’t you guys go get a coffee while we get Clint comfortable? You look like you could use a break.”

Bucky didn’t want a break. Bucky wanted to keep a very, very close eye on this nurse just in case she did something to Clint. He didn’t want her getting rid of them and shutting the curtains. But Steve seemed to think it was a good idea, because he nodded like it was rational to leave Clint on his own with a suspect nurse and no protection. He stood, and gestured for Bucky to do the same. “Come on, Buck, we’ll go get some food or something, let the nurses do their thing.”

Bucky wanted to argue. He wanted to tell Steve that he was being an idiot and Clint wasn’t safe here, but he didn’t want to start a fight in the middle of the ICU in case they didn’t let him come back in. Bucky Bear said he’d like to see someone try and stop them, but Bucky didn’t want to get anyone into trouble. Grudgingly, he got out of his seat, but rather than leaving outright like Steve clearly wanted him to, Bucky stopped just in front of the door and watched the nurse. Just in case.

She wasn’t doing anything outright suspicious, but Bucky was on to her. He observed very carefully as she called over one of the other nurses and engaged in a brief conversation. It was difficult to pick out their words, because a machine chose that moment to start shrilling a truly awful alarm, but he distinctly made out the words ‘ _change him_ ’. Bucky went cold, because Suspicious Nurse had fetched what looked horribly like a diaper from the cupboard beside Clint’s bed, and was taking it behind the curtains with them.

Steve wasn’t looking, so distracted that he almost left Bucky behind and had to backtrack, but Bucky knew what he’d seen. There was a twisting sensation starting somewhere in his guts, chilly and uncertain, and his head felt like it was full of bees. He didn’t know what to think. He didn’t even know where to start.

“Buck, you okay?” Steve sounded worried and looked about a second away from a complete breakdown, so Bucky couldn’t- he just _couldn’t_. So he tried to suck it up. He nodded, forced a smile that was probably more of a grimace, and moved to follow Steve back towards the waiting area.

“I don’t want to get a coffee. I’d rather stay here.” He shouldn’t have said anything, because Steve had almost certainly skipped breakfast this morning and was probably feeling horrible by now, but the last thing Bucky wanted was to sit in the canteen. It would be crowded at this time of day, full of noise and smells and things he wasn’t ready to deal with. He struggled with too many people on a good day. Today was not a good day.

Steve knew that, of course, and he’d go without because he thought he needed to babysit Bucky. They’d sit in the waiting room, and Steve would be hungry and miserable all because Bucky couldn’t cope with a canteen full of strangers.

“You could always sit with me in the quiet room, while Steve goes for his coffee?” Bucky didn’t jump, because that would be ridiculous, but he did whip around fast enough that a normal person would have cricked their neck.

Maggie from yesterday was standing a little way behind them, a Carebear lunch bag tucked under her arm. Steve offered her a washed out smile. “We wouldn’t want to intrude-” he started, which made Bucky scowl. He’d been left on his own yesterday and the world hadn’t ended. It had been a close run thing, granted, but that hadn’t been his fault.

“Actually, I think that’s a great idea,” he told Steve, daring him to say anything. Bucky was a grownass man, he didn’t need a minder. He was fine. “I’ll sit with Maggie. You get your lunch.”

Steve looked intensely uncomfortable. He coughed, and when he spoke he sounded uncomfortable too. “Look, Buck, I think Maggie’s busy- why don’t we just wait here, let her get on with her work.” 

“I think you’re treating me like I can’t take care of myself!” Bucky snapped. He was sick of being treated like he was five even when he wasn’t. He was sick of Steve taking so much onto himself that it looked like it was breaking him, when Bucky Barnes was supposed to be the one that looked after Steve Rogers. He wanted to hit Steve in his stupid, noble face. He also wanted to cry and say sorry and beg Steve not to hate him.

The dissonance was making his head hurt. He didn’t even want to be angry with Steve, which was the most stupid part of it all. He was tired, and worried, and he couldn’t get the image of Suspicious Nurse holding a diaper out of his head. He couldn’t get the _implication_ of it out of his head. He didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know how to explain it, and the whole mess was making him lash out at Steve.

Before Bucky could say anything else and dig himself an even deeper hole, there was a quiet ‘um, hello?’ that derailed him. Maggie was standing a little closer now, like there wasn’t two men over a foot taller than her having the beginnings of an argument over the top of her head. She smiled once she’d gotten their attention. “It’s okay, you know. I really don’t mind. I’m not busy. I was just going to be sitting down anyway. It’s okay if he wants to join me.”

Bucky had to wonder how much she and Steve had actually talked yesterday. She’d probably been the one to call him, and she’d vanished at the same time as Steve had arrived to rescue him from the bathroom. Steve seemed to trust her, at least a little, probably in the strange way that people tended to instinctively trust nurses. Maybe it was because Steve’s mother had been a nurse? Bucky had seen it written at the Smithsonian, Before.

“See?” he mumbled, not sure that he even wanted to argue with Steve anymore. He just wanted Steve to get a stupid coffee and stop looking like the world was ending. “We’ll just- sit. I’m fine, and you’ll only be gone for a minute.”  

Steve looked torn, and Bucky was about to apologise, maybe offer to go to the canteen with him because Steve needed to eat and to stop looking like someone had punched him in the gut, but before he got the chance Steve offered him a frail smile. “Okay, Buck. I’ll be back in a minute then.”  

And then he left, and Bucky found himself facing the very real fear that Steve might not come back.


	4. It’s not a shameful secret

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, the final chapter! Oddly enough, this is the conversation that the whole fic was supposed to revolve around, but in the end it turned into the conclusion instead.

“So, you seem to be having a bit of a bad day today.” Maggie had taken them to a little room just to the side of the main waiting area, and flipped the panel on the door to read ENGAGED. Bucky appreciated the privacy, because he was almost certain that the slightest little thing was going to set him off crying, and once he started he’d probably never stop. He’d probably cry so hard he’d suffocate, or something equally horrible, all because Steve had gone off to get a coffee and Bucky couldn’t convince himself that he’d come back.

“I had a panic attack in the waiting room and nearly threw up on your sneakers, but _today_ I seem to be having a bad day?” Bucky didn’t look up from his hands, which were twisted together in his lap, metal fingers slowly crushing flesh ones white. It hurt a bit, but it was grounding.

Maggie, who had set her things aide and was contemplating Bucky with thoughtful brown eyes, just shrugged. “I’m a nurse; panic attacks and vomit are sort of in my job description. If things like that bothered me, I wouldn’t be very good at my job, you know?”

Bucky supposed she had a point. There were probably all sorts of horrible bodily fluids that nurses had to clean up, but he couldn’t quite wrap his head around how they did it without everything being world endingly embarrassing. Maybe there was a trick to it? He certainly couldn’t imagine how not to be mortified to the point of physical pain when someone realised he’d pissed the bed. The very idea of someone actually cleaning it up for him, possibly on a routine basis, made his insides shrivel up.

“I- it’s embarrassing,” His voice was small, and there was a bit of a stutter lurking there, but he still felt resolutely adult. He wasn’t even sure why, by this point; normally the stress would have dropped him long before he got this far. Today, though, his mind seemed happy to run itself in depressingly grownup circles.

“I know, but there really isn’t anything to be embarrassed about. It’s not like you chose to have a panic attack. You certainly didn’t do it maliciously. It’s not like it’s something you can do _at_ a person, either.” There was the sound of a zipper pulling, and Bucky looked up to see Maggie opening her lunch bag. She pulled out a tub of salad and a fork. When she opened the lid, it smelled strong and familiar; Bucky wasn’t sure if he’d seen Natasha eating something similar, or if he’d eaten it himself at some point. He shook his head before he could get trapped in a memory.

“I should have better control of myself. None of this is about me, it’s about Clint. Getting all of the attention because I can’t handle sitting in a hospital waiting room is selfish. Wrong.” Clint could very well be dying, he was certainly critically ill and unconscious; the last thing he needed was Bucky taking centre stage. It could even be said that Bucky was falling apart _because_ of Clint, and the idea that anyone would blame his friend for some failing on Bucky’s part made him simultaneously furious and miserable.

Maggie took a few bites of her salad, a thoughtful look on her face. She then reached into her bag and pulled out a bagel. “Here.” She placed it on his lap, because his hands were both occupied with anxious twisting. “You’re hurting your fingers. If you need to fiddle, fiddle with that. Pick it apart, eat it, I don’t mind. My husband always puts them in my lunch, no matter how many times I tell him I don’t like American bagels. I normally throw them out, or feed them to the birds.”

Bucky took the bagel, because it would be rude not to and Maggie had been kind to him. He picked at the saran wrap keeping the crumbs in, worrying a little hole with his fingertips. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. I really don’t like American bagels. I like bublik, so he assumes I’ll like bagels, because he can’t taste the difference.” Maggie gestured to the little wrapped package with her fork, her nose screwed into an expression of disgust. “But bagels aside, what’s all this rubbish about attention and controlling yourself? Your friend is in the hospital, surrounded by intimidating machines and covered in tubes and wires. He’s not aware of any of that; he’s asleep right now, and by the time he wakes up the worst of it will be over. He probably won’t even remember very much of what happened. You, on the other hand, have to watch. That’s not easy. Anyone would be upset.”

“Not everyone ends up throwing up in the waiting room because they can’t cope with it, though.” Bucky gave the bagel an angry jab, feeling his finger breech the crust and sink into the interior. He wriggled it a bit, more to distract himself than anything else.

“No, not everyone.” Maggie sounded annoyingly reasonable; Bucky wondered if that was something they taught in nursing school. “Some people faint. A lot of people cry. The majority either shout or swear at us. Obviously, that’s not something we particularly enjoy, but it’s not hard to understand why it happens.”

Bucky wanted to believe her. He wanted to take the absolution that she so easily offered and feel better about the mess he was in, but it wasn’t as simple as all that. She didn’t know his history, the things that he’d done, the horrible person he was more than capable of being. Except, she probably did, because she’d held his metal hand yesterday, and she’d seen Steve; anyone would have been able to put the pieces together.

He didn’t say anything, focussing instead on his slow destruction of the bagel in his lap. It was shedding pale crumbs over his jeans, but he was careful that none spilled onto the floor; he was tired of other people having to clear up his messes. “Do you hate them, the people that shout at you? The ones that make your life difficult when you just want to get on with your job?” Bucky wondered if Steve hated him now.

Maggie actually laughed, though, which made him look up from his hands. She was smiling, fork trapped between her teeth. “Oh, they annoy me,” she said once she’d chewed and swallowed. “But I don’t hate them. Like I said, I get it. It’s a horrible time for these people, probably the worst time of their life, and they’re scared. Looking for someone to blame. A lot of them are blaming themselves, or feeling powerless. That doesn’t mean I like it when someone gets all up in my face, but it’s not like they’re doing it because they hate me. They don’t even know me.”

Bucky thought that sometimes, he might be looking for someone to blame, but it was always easier to blame himself than anyone else. He’d snapped at Steve, though, when all Steve ever did was try to help. He tried to think of something to say, but the words wouldn’t come. He settled for rolling a bit of the bagel into a ball between his metal fingers; it formed a surprisingly dense projectile which he flicked in the direction of the bin.

“Good shot.” Maggie had finished with her salad, which meant she was free to watch Bucky uninterrupted. “Now, and you can tell me to shut up if I’m overstepping here, but do you want to talk about it?”

There were so many things at the moment that he wasn’t talking about that Bucky actually snorted. “Which ‘it’? There are a lot of them right now.”

“Well, which ‘it’ do you feel like talking about right now? If there are all that many, maybe talking about one of them will get rid of it.” It should have been ridiculous, but Bucky found himself smiling, just a little, at the sudden mental image of his problems lined up with sticky IT labels attached to them.

“Well. Um.” He knew what he wanted to talk about. What he needed to talk about. But it was difficult to get the words to come out right. The thought of what he’d seen was going round and round in his head like Iron Bear had in the washing machine, when Steve had washed him after he’d ended up in the toilet. “I just- I don’t know.”

Maggie’s eyebrows went up. “I’m not going to judge you,” she said kindly, like she really meant it. Like nothing Bucky could say would shock her. Then again, given that the first time she’d met him he’d thrown up then sobbed for his Daddy, it was very possible that was true.

“They’ve put Clint in a diaper.” The words were out before he really had time to think about them. They left a funny taste in his mouth and an anxious feeling in his stomach, like he’d revealed something terrible. Like she’d think less of Clint by knowing, even though she obviously already knew.

“Clint’s not really able to help that, right now.” Maggie’s voice was very gentle, but there was a thoughtfulness in her expression, like she was trying to puzzle something out. “He’s unconscious at the moment, and doesn’t have any control over his body.”

“I’m not saying he’s doing it on purpose! He’s not- he’s not like that.” He didn’t want her getting the wrong idea; didn’t want her thinking less of his friend. Clint was one of the strongest people Bucky knew, and he couldn’t bear the thought of Maggie thinking he was weak. Thinking he was disgusting like Bucky was.

Whatever Maggie had been trying to figure out, she looked like she had it. She didn’t even seem to mind that Bucky had pretty much shouted in her face for the second time in two days. “You know there’s no ‘like that’ right?” she asked, and Bucky dropped his head, hiding under his hair. “I think this is one of those ‘its’. Something that’s been bothering you?”

It was. Because she didn’t know. It wasn’t like everybody else; the Avengers, his therapists, everyone. She was different, maybe because she didn’t really know him, or because she didn’t have to deal with any of this. Or maybe because Bucky was beginning to realise that the most horrifyingly embarrassing part of his existence at present was- commonplace to her.

“You don’t think it’s disgusting?” he asked, voice impossibly small, He didn’t want to look at her in case he was wrong. He didn’t want to see her expression if she thought he was dirty. Wrong.

“Of course I don’t think it’s disgusting. Why on earth would I?” Gentle fingers parted his hair, sweeping it aside so Maggie could peer at his face unimpeded. Her expression was earnest, maybe a little bit passionate. “You know, so many of the people I look after say something along those lines. They’re embarrassed, or ashamed, or think they need to apologise for something that’s not only completely out of their control, but completely natural.”

“It’s not natural- should be able to control yourself- people manage to make it to the toilet all the time, every day. Kids can do it.” Bucky turned his head away, eyes closed, but Maggie tapped his face to get him to look at her again.

“And there are people that don’t. Every day, all the time. This isn’t something that just happens to sick people, or old people, or whatever it is that’s going through your head right now. There are so many people in this world who have problems with continence, for lots of different reasons. We’re conditioned to be embarrassed by it, you know?”

Bucky didn’t like the implication of that in the slightest. Conditioning was never, in any way, a good thing. He gestured for Maggie to explain, not trusting himself to speak.

“It’s perfectly natural,” she told him, with all the certainty of her profession behind her. “It’s something your body is designed to do. It produces waste, and it’s designed to release that waste before it becomes harmful. The idea that you should wait, or hold it til it hurts, or not go because you’re embarrassed, is one of the most stupid things I’ve ever heard, but everyone does it. It’s something that’s trained into us as children. You start your life going whenever your body needs to, it’s even something a lot of children are praised for, when they’re just starting out with their toilet training.”

Bucky had never been praised for anything of the sort, not that he could remember, but he supposed that it was true in theory. He could sort of remember looking into child development at some point.

“We start off being praised for using the toilet, rewarded for it, but as soon as a child passes a certain age it becomes something naughty. A lot of children are actively punished for not being able to hold on, or not accurately judging when they can hold it and when they can’t. It causes a lot of distress for a lot of children, and that’s not something that actually goes away later, at least not that I’ve found.” Maggie had somehow ended up holding Bucky’s hand again; he was very careful not to crush her fingers in his metal grip. He didn’t want to look at her anymore; what she was saying was hitting a bit close to home, but it also made sense. God help him, but it made sense.

“Incontinence, or just acknowledging their bodily functions to others in general, is quite literally terrifying for some people. It controls their lives. There are people who barely drink, because they know they can’t always make it to the toilet in time if they do. Who don’t go outside, because they can’t be sure what they’re body’s going to do, and don’t want anyone else to know. Who are too embarrassed to ask for help.”

She was telling the truth. More than once, Bucky had taken to hiding his drinks, pouring them out when nobody was watching, because he didn’t trust what his body would do. Sometimes, it made the difference between waking up in a wet bed or not, but the tradeoff was headaches, feeling sick and dizzy all day instead. And Steve always seemed to find out, and he looked so devastated about it, like Bucky was trying to hurt himself, rather than battling to reclaim some small measure of dignity.

“Do you… do you help people… often?” Bucky’s voice was very small, but Maggie seemed to have good hearing, because she gave his fingers a squeeze in response.

“There are a lot of different ways of helping someone, but I think the most important thing is taking that embarrassment away. Without the embarrassment, it’s so much less of a problem. You have to watch out for sore skin, and it takes a bit of cleaning up sometimes, but that’s all. I help clean and change people quite literally every single day. It’s not something I’m embarrassed about, and I try to make them view it the same way. It’s just a bodily function, it’s natural. It’s not something I mind.”

Bucky found himself suddenly very interested with Maggie’s sneakers, because he didn’t quite know where to look. There was so much in his head, so many thoughts going round, warring for dominance. Everything he’d ever been taught, every single thought he’d had about his problem, had been entirely negative. He hated his body for doing it to him, hated himself for not being able to control it, hated Steve and Tony for trying to find products to help him. It wasn’t something he viewed as natural at all.

 _You view killing as natural,_ Bucky Bear’s dry voice came from the bag at his feet; Bucky could see a single eye shining where it caught the light. _Killing is normal, with weapons, with your bare hands. But you’re ashamed of your bodily functions._

Bucky wondered if the bear was judging him; it was difficult to tell, because Bucky Bear was already in a bad mood. He didn’t like the hospital, he didn’t trust any of the doctors, and he thought Steve was being unreasonable. “So… you don’t- it’s not disgusting?” He was hung up on the bizarre thought that someone could actually change another person’s diaper (another _adult_ person’s diaper) and not be utterly revolted by it.

“No. Some aspects of my job are a bit horrible at times, but if that sort of thing really bothered me I wouldn’t be able to work. I love my job, bodily fluids and all.”

It wasn’t Maggie’s left sneaker that was odd, Bucky realised, deliberately not thinking about what she was telling him; he needed a moment to process. It was her leg. His eyes flicked up to his prosthetic fingers, and the confident way she touched them, then down to the dull metal cylinder that occupied the space where he expected her left leg to be. It didn’t even really resemble a leg (not like his arm, which had the same shape and range of movement as the real thing), and he wondered if people stared at her. He wondered if she was embarrassed about it.

“If you had to advise someone… with that sort of problem… what would you say to them?” Bucky didn’t quite look her in the eye, but he stopped staring at her feet just in case it made her uncomfortable. “What would you tell them to do?”

“I’d tell them to try not to worry too much about it,” Maggie wasn’t looking at him at all, now, which actually helped. “I’d advise them to find a product that worked for them, something that allowed them to feel confident, so that they can get their life back. Because this sort of thing stops people living their lives, and that’s terrible. A person shouldn’t have to plan their whole day around their bodily functions, or not make plans because of them.”

She was very carefully avoiding using words like ‘you’, but Bucky wasn’t stupid; she was talking to him. About him. He wanted to hide, embarrassed, but he also wanted to listen, because she actually knew what she was talking about. She wasn’t talking to him because she was his therapist, or because she wanted to unpick the underlying issue causing his problem, she just wanted him to be able to not worry so much about it.

“It doesn’t have to be something that’s hidden from everyone. It’s not a shameful secret, and if someone needs to wear a product to help them manage their symptoms, then that’s fine. It’s not a failing or a weakness. There’s nothing wrong with not being able to manage something alone, either. Everyone needs a bit of help sometimes.”

She fell silent, and Bucky didn’t know what to say. He didn’t really know what to think, but at the same time he couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d said. He wondered what it felt like, not to constantly worry about if he would be able to control himself. He thought about how it would feel, to just- go to sleep when he felt tired, even if he wasn’t in his own bed, hidden behind a closed door where he could wash away the evidence before anyone saw his shame.

They sat quietly for a few more minutes, before Maggie nudged his shoulder, prompting him to look up at her. “Here.” She placed a her folded napkin gently in his hand, a cell phone number scrawled across it in black ink. “If you ever need advice. Or someone to talk to who isn’t Steve.”

He closed his fingers around the napkin. “I don’t think Steve wants to talk to me anymore,” he admitted. “I’ve made his life really hard lately.”

“Maybe, but he loves you, and he’s waiting out in the main area for you. He peeked through the window a little while ago, while you were knuckle deep inside that bagel.” Bucky’s head snapped up, eyes going towards the door. Steve was visible through the glass, drinking from a paper cup. Something that had been wound tight in Bucky’s chest relaxed at the sight of him.

Maggie nudged him again. “Go on, go sit with him. He’ll be happy to see you, I promise.”

“I make his life hard. I’m- I’m a mess. He has to deal with it.”

“We’re all a mess sometimes. Take it from me, that doesn’t make him love you any less. It might make him worry, but he wouldn’t get rid of that worry if it meant getting rid of you along with it.” She tugged his hand, pulling him up and towards the door. Forgotten remnants of the bagel showered to the floor like rain, speckling the carpet and prompting Maggie to laugh.

“How can you be sure?” Bucky asked, right before she opened the door, the last barrier between him and Steve.

Maggie smiled. “Because I’m a nurse, a wife, and a mother; trust me, I know these things.”

And perhaps she did, because the second Steve saw them he was across the room and folding Bucky into his arms, muttering apologies and affection into his hair. Bucky hugged him back, because Steve was- pretty much everything, and he’d come back, even though Bucky had been awful to him.

Of course, they lived in the real world, so a hug and some good advice couldn’t fix everything. Clint was still in intensive care; they wouldn’t be waking him up for hours yet, and it would probably be weeks before he recovered fully. Bucky was still a mess, and Steve was slowly falling to pieces, but for the first time in a while it didn’t feel hopeless.

For the first time in a long time, Bucky didn’t feel irreparably broken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much everyone who has read and commented on this work; your comments and kudos are what keep me going. 
> 
> Thanks again to the awesome Lauralot, for allowing me to sponge off of her universe.


End file.
